Incredible Shadows 4 - Syndrome Time
by eisceire
Summary: Mr Incredible has had some bad days & starts to feel simpatico with Syndrome; will he stay a hero? Sexual imagery. O/C


_**AUTHOR NOTE »»» Fear not! The story has a start, a middle, an end and all in the right order. It's even complete. Gentle Reader; you can take all of this tale (and all of it in one hit too) and it'll stand up for itself, all by itself. It does better in company though. Read the rest of Incredible Shadows and, even, Metroville Two-Step; if you want to add depth to each piece and add them all together for a bigger story.**_

Right now, in his life, more than anything else Mr Incredible regretted Syndrome's demise; they were simpatico; could have been confreres, partners ... united against the world. Well enough that he had distanced the Parrs from the Incredibles, saved them from potential discovery by leading a life as blobbo Bobbo, the klutz, the clown; no reason at all for the world and his wife to take him for a clown in actual truth. Him and Helen had had three super kids, three Super Kids and weren't they all doing quite well enough. Why would she then pronounce the return of Supers as making the world so unsafe; that it was not only the reason for having no more offspring with him but for not even to be having any more sport —there was no good reason for that ... unless she thought of him as the bozo he pretended to be and not as a Man that she wanted. It made him feel so very small, why even his own kids were offering him comfort. Those kids; Violet who'd got stuck with the sappy tag of Bubbles, went around retiring villains permanently and still got applauded for it. He hardly got such good fortune: as hard as he heroed, everything he did only made extra trouble and nothing he did was good enough. He was sick of walking away from muttering crowds; what did they know anyway, all they cared about was the newest, shiniest Super ... like that Shimmer Girl who was jumping in on every Call before he'd even got the car in gear. Well dandy; if they didn't like the taste of Nice Mr Incredible he'd just see how they liked Mr Nasty Incredible ... Oh Yes!

Zzzzt ... ... Zzzzt ... ... Zzzzt ... ... Zzzzt ... ... Zzzzt ... ... Zzzzt ... ... He'd let the radio fade into background noise but one call still caught his ear and enticed him to stage one last stint of simple Supering: «_Zzzt ... Masonry Threat. Babylon Towers Falling. Supers Requested_.» He knew that name well: it was the old print firm, the one that'd made all the Superhero pin-up calendars and other junk, back in the day; heck, that was even why he'd gone and asked to be relocated to Metroville at all ... just for the joke of it. Oh great! Well he'd be the star Super one last time and save the place; it was as good a way as any to mark the change in him, the turning point. People would look back and say «_The Printworks, yeh, that was the last time we saw the old Mr Incredible_.» The first one who was going to be a witness was the watchman who ambled out to meet him in the worksyard; puffing on a disreputable, old pipe as he stretched out an arm to shake Mr Incredible's hand and welcome him: «_Glad to see you Mr Incredible, sure is good that one of the old crowd made it out here to help out. Its nothing much to worry about, the old block has been in mothballs these last few years, so there ain't nobody in there using the place. Reck'n that's why there's this big rebuild on, to pump some life back in the joint. Sure is a shame the scaffolding took a lurch, its not holding up nothing anymores. Reckon you're the guy to bump it back into place. Mind you don't make any sparks; they never did take all the chemicals out of there._» The old guy waved his glowing pipe in the direction of the problem and left Mr Incredible to it. The Super went at it with way more dedication than he'd devoted to anything down the days of the last few weeks; not wanting, at all, to disappointment his veteran fan: Mr Incredible cast his eyes downwards, as he raised the scaffolding skywards; edging it forward with all legs off of the ground, so as to not set off the scantiest of sparks. That single-minded, simple-minded strategy was to cost him dear, as he hadn't considered all the angles, all the aspects; not least of which was the bucket, balanced on a beam above, which broke loose to come bucketing down with a scrape, a squeal and a shower of sparks that made a supernova of the seventh floor. Fire and flinders and fenestration were flung outwards in a bomb-burst blaze that, beneficently burnt itself out in short order but left behind it a blitzstorm of paper that was cast out and curled aloft on currents of fire-warmed air.

Mr Incredible was surrounded by a primary coloured paperstorm a cavalcade of calendar pages, a hailstorm of heroes as they had been in their heydays;yet, primary and predominant, to his eye, amongst the primal hues were poster-girl pin-ups of Elastigirl:

Here she was huddled up, hugging her knees; those brilliant, red boots seeming to extend on forever but ending. at last. in a baby-soft band of thigh. Oh the hiss and whisper of fabric as he'd inched them off, to lay bare the long, luscious length of her legs.

Now she was doing the splits; the crisp white lines of her costume were creased into contours that drew the eye downwards to that sweet vee; the jointure of her legs where here leotard stretched and swelled around a very volcano of passion that he'd ignited, night after night.

Next to pass across his vision was the dominatrix: standing spread-legged, erect and upright, head raised, eyes commanding and arms fiercely crossed across her chest. Ah, the many times she'd elastically wind and twine her arms all about her torso: teasingly tempting him to tussle with her in a torrid tug-of-war that, somehow, he'd always wind up winning ... to be unwinding her arms, to uncover breasts and nipples already engorged and erect from their foreplay.

This image had her as playful, sportive: bent backwards over a chair, body arched, an arch smile on the sideturned face. Taut and tight across her tense tummy the raised, red ridge of her belt, a belt that he could feel under his hands even now. More familiar to him than his own belt buckle from the many times he'd swung her about by his super-strength till she hung head-down and he could hold her their for all of the time it took for her to make known how much her mouth admired the manliness of him and she surely could take her own, sweet time in expressing her appreciation.

An action pose whirled by: Elastigirl in a boxer's pose, red gauntleted hands held high; the gloves burned bright in his mind and his memory ... those early, easy times when Superlad and Superlass would steal sweet moments between missions — water-tank tops, powerstation stanchions, bridge-girder nests, skyscraper heights and more became beds of passion for two young Supers, keyed to the nth degree by danger and risk. Those gloves: they were always the very last thing to come off; once the two of them were stripped to the skin and standing, he behind her and pressed closer than a stamp to an envelope. He'd lay his hands on her bare shoulders and draw his hands along the bridge of bare flesh from nape to mitt; entering the funnelled glovetops to ease them down all the length of her arms to her guiding hands that might lie across a midriff that wanted a massage, dogleg up to breasts wanting a caress or plunge down to urge him directly into action ... meanwhile her head would be turned entirely around and their lips would be enacting a prologue long before the main show.

All of that, now, was withered, whirled away, gone to ashes ... like the fire-tossed calendar pages that tumbled about his head and then were gone. He snatched futilely, forlornly, hopelessly at images he'd never have again, at a life gone by. He stilled, as the watchman laid a hand on his shoulder to say: «_Sure, and you did good, big fella; never you mind 'bout some old calendar_s.» «_That's my wife_.» Mr Incredible just managed to get out.

The watchman responded with an appreciative whistle: «._..Thought so, that's won me a bet down the club. Got time to have a bevy with me? Course you have, you'll need to wet your whistle after all the heat n dust. Come along with me; the fancy, schmancy block next door is mine ... not all of it, mind; just the Custodian's Apartment. The all of it belongs along with the Printworks; it was built back in the day for the workforce and a grand place they made of it, just to be showing what a swell firm they were. Just through this snicket now, mind your head; I'm the first one on the corner, not so high class as the managers' up high there but the best of the rest. In the way of things even Lord High Muck A Muck would need to be having a word or two with jannie. Natch they wouldn't dream of rubbing out the elbows of their city suits in some grubby matchbox; so they built my place twice as big as any of the other broom-pushers'. Mind, my folks weren't even here when it all went up; my grandpop hadn't hardly been born and he was ways off, in the big city. This here's my place, come on in, make yourself at home. Oh! Sorry, sorry; where's my manners gone got to ... shoulda introduced by myself a whiles ago: Artie Donbrook. Come on in, settle yourself down in the parlour here; I built it in my own self. The hallway here useta be ways oversize so I thought to myself to cut it down n make a room outta it. Put a hatch through to the kitchen too; I can hear you just dandy through here whiles I brew the java. Them frames are mine, the gew gaws are the lawfully wedded's, she passed away four years gone and I've not changed any of it. Here ya go: milk, cream, sugar; knock yourself out_.»

«_Yessir; wife n family; nothing better for a guy. Pity that you're having a thin time of it; now don't be looking at me that ways. My pop was Services too, Fire n Rescue down in San Fran n I was a cop, for my sins; seen the signs times enough. Easy enough to lose your way when you're fighting the world everyday; you forget the important battles are the ones inside of here:if you're around printing enough, you catch the image bugandI've mates enough in the industry, so all these pictures round the walls, they're unique, unpublished; you can read a story in them, if you've an eye for it. Here's a new one just started; that Northern Lights Girl rescuing the dog show. Up along that row, right there, theres a tale been growing for years now: got your affair with Lastigirl right from when you were single heroes all the ways to the family team ... be a tearing shame to hang up four single frames. Did you reck'n on being a team or just fall into it?_» The conversation kicked off from there, each having as much to say as the other; Artie had seen it all, Mr Incredible had been there ... the two were on a wavelength and time flowed away.

«_Reck'n I'd best see you on your way though, less'n you're going to stay the night. Fore you go, I've something for you, seeing how you were so tore up losing them old calendars; this is the best of all of them; its yours now. Not so pretty as them other Lastigirl's; pure action shots every month and some of them pretty grim, but thems real heroics. Well, sure has been cosy the two of us chatting away here, call back any time now_.» Mr Incredible reeled back to his motor dazed, amazed and stunned to have spent such a satisfying social interlude; he was accustomed to any audience he had, in this alter ego, to have their own agenda from simply seeking to be with a Super to wanting to wipe them all out and be the only one. He sat in his supercar, for the longest time: turning the pages of the calendar, the pages of his memory; bringing to mind what it meant to be a Super.

Over dinner, that evening, he recounted the incidents, if not the insights and errors, of his day to the family and, that same night, he drew on the delights of yore in hopes that Helen would restore their amorous adventures but she was adamantine against him, as she reiterated the reasons for remaining unromanced and he had to retire to bed with nothing but dreams to keep him company.

It started with sheep bounding across a gate, bleating and baahing, but, soon enough, yapping, barking, snarling and snapping at one another ... as the dogs they'd become fell into a frenzy; boiling into an impenetrable mass of furious fur. From out of the heart of the storm there burst a brilliant, prismatic, multi-hued corona of light that coalesced into human form: a young woman, bare-armed, bare-legged and bare-bodied; with two, white pony-tails thrusting up from a dragon mask, like horns. The hounds swirled into a panting, licking, tail-wagging whirlwind of canine amity; as the bright lady soared aloft and drew him along in her slipstream ... till he fell behind, fell to earth — in an avenue of statuary: broken figures, broken buildings, broken boats, trains and more. In the far distance, at the end of the avenue, he saw his family huddled together — but the more he moved forward the more the ranks of the monuments was swelled by reproving, marble citizenry; all of their gazes, their frozen gestures, censuring him. There was no hope of an end to it ... not till an omnidroid sphere rumbled into being behind him: leaving him unflattened, it rolled along the avenue razing the statuary in front of it and raising the buildings of Metroville behind it; at the end of the promenade it halted and reversed course, a handsbreath in front of his family. It robbed, raided and ruined Metroville all about it; to build up a shielding wall of bullion, gold and gems that fenced the family in ... and it had his face! It shot into the air; a black, round ball of soot puffed from a watchman's pipe ... out of the glowing bowl of which grew a high-rise of scaffolding, borne aloft in a ballet of strength by the a blue and black clad Mr Incredible, and, out of all the windows of the printworks, there hung friends, family and peers; applauding a hero in action. The scaffolding grew and shrank; gaining in height, changing in width; becoming a power pylon that fountained out a sparkstorm of Elastigirls: from earliest days to Syndrome times, in costume and out, and the nearer and nower they were the, larger and solider they became ... until they fused into the self-same person he'd bid goodnight to — only unassailably encased in ice. Black, red and yellow Mr Incredible embraced his englaciated wife; ice melted away in his arms, to unlock the woman within ... a dragon-helmed girl whose costume misted away to the form of Mirage sans apparel. With that image embedded in his mind he awoke to a tangle of sheets, the beep of the alert and (for the first time in forever) the thrill to action in his veins.


End file.
